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Old June 16th, 2004 #1
The Final Solution
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Default Pilgrim Church: mud Immigration a "Victory of Christ's Grace"

Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move - N° 90, December 2002, p. 113-127

Towards an Ecclesiology of Migration*
Rev. Fr. Michael A. BLUME, S.V.D.,

Undersecretary, Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrations and Itinerant People

Migration has become “systemic” in our world and in our Church and will remain so for the foreseeable future. When scholars eventually write the history of the Pilgrim Church in the 21st century, they will not be able to avoid speaking about the Church and migration. The next hundred years will require creativity and determination to assure that presence.

1. Migration, a sign of our times
One of the phenomena that the Second Vatican Council considers a “sign of our times,” which the Church is called to scrutinize and interpret in the light of the Gospel, is migration: “It is also noteworthy how many men are being induced to migrate on various counts, and are thereby changing their manner of life. Thus a man's ties with his fellows are constantly being multiplied, and at the same time ‘socialization’ brings further ties, without however always promoting appropriate personal development and truly personal relationships.”[1] So let us scrutinize migration a bit and try to interpret it in the light of the gospel. What are some notable aspects of this sign of our times?

First, there is a need for migration, and in fact any areas in the world will have a hard time surviving without it, Europe being one of them. There are several scenarios available to describe what it might be the future, and practically all of them say that an increase in migration is inevitable.[2] That also means more peoples and cultures are going to meet and in some way interact.

What is inseparably linked with this so called “replacement migration” are potentially devastating effects on countries of origin in the so called “brain drain” or, as some call it today, the “brain hunt.” This requires serious ethical reflection that needs to be concretized in mutually beneficial policies.[3] What is more, it is also a fact that many nations need emigration to survive, as for example, through the remittances of migrants that contribute significantly to the economies of their home countries.[4]

[...]

2. Migration as an opportunity
Despite all the problems of migration, Catholic teaching on it maintains a basic optimism and positive approach. When contrasted with the usual media reporting on migration, Catholic teaching, whether coming from the Holy Father, from bishops’ conferences, or dioceses, is remarkably “upbeat.”

What are the main “optimistic” elements? First, migration is a privileged occasion for the meeting of cultures that promotes the unity of the human race and the mutual understanding of peoples and civilizations.

Second, “integration” is possible! When migrants are neither held back nor forced ahead, “integration” can take place on equal footing with other members of the Christian community. People can transcend the cultural and ethnic realities that formed them and become a constructive part of other societies. What happens in the Church should be a model and encouragement for the rest of society. Immigrants, as they learn local languages and customs, acquire cultural skills, and take part in Church – if they are Christians – and civic life, contribute to and enrich both.

[...]

As the idea of pilgrimage implies, it is a rough and incomplete reality, with suffering and setbacks as pilgrims move towards their goal. The company of those who have already reached it spurs us on. The Pilgrim Church is thus also catholic, first of all, in its basic sense of kat’holon or “according to the whole,” embracing the whole, or the universal character of the People of God. It means the Catholic Church “ceaselessly and efficaciously seeks for the return of all humanity and all its goods under Christ the head in the unity of his Spirit”.[8] Catholicity is about diversity in the Church in so far as it is ordered to unity in Christ. Migration offers the “local Church the occasion to verify their catholicity.”[9] It is manifest not only in receiving people of different geographic and ethnic origins but especially in realizing communion with them. “Cultural pluralism in the Church does not establish a situation that is to be tolerated as it is transitory but is a structural dimension of the Church. The unity of the Church does not come from a common origin or language, but from the Spirit of Pentecost.”[10] Furthermore “Catholicity is not only expressed in the fraternal communion of the baptized, but also in the hospitality extended to the stranger, whatever his religious belief, in the rejection of all racial exclusion or discrimination, in the recognition of the personal dignity of every man and women and, consequently, in the commitment to furthering their inalienable rights.”[11]

“Pilgrim Church” seems a particularly apt way for speaking about a theology of migration. It is a reminder of an essential trait of the People of God, that of really having no fixed dwelling place on earth, of being on pilgrimage towards the Kingdom. Under this image migration and human mobility are almost “sacramental” phenomena, for they effectively put us into touch with an essential dimension of the Church.

[...]

a. A Pilgrim, Catholic, and Intercultural Church
The work of the Spirit in the Pilgrim Church is intercultural. In the physical closeness of different cultures that results from migration, the Holy Spirit draws them together, making diversity of its members not a threat or a problem but an enrichment and strength. Belonging to the People of God, as expressed concretely in local Churches, does not depend on nationality, ethnicity, language, or skin color but on professing faith in Jesus Christ and being baptized into his name and Body. In this, nothing authentically human in cultures in lost. Regarding “the ability, riches and customs in which the genius of each people expresses itself [the Church] . . . purifies, strengthens, elevates and ennobles them”[12]

[...]

What is said in the Church also finds an expression, mutatis mutandis, in the world of international politics. The recently concluded Helsinki Meeting of the European Ministers Responsible for Migration contains positive statements about the contribution of migrant populations to Europe.[16] IOM’s 50th celebrations a year ago reflected similar convictions in the context of “controlled migration.” The interculturality of the Christian community is an indispensable motor for the rest of society in making the experience of migration more than just juxtaposition of cultural groups or tolerance among them but a growing dynamic exchange of gifts, which also contributes to avoiding a hostile clash of cultures and civilizations.

[...]

In a theological and spiritual sense, the “enrichment” other cultures offer to the People of God does not necessarily consist only in what is suggested by symbols like photos of smiling children from all the world playing or dancing together. The experience of the Cross, with its falls and struggles and fidelity to the will of the Father, is inseparably part of the enrichment. Struggles in the name of the Lord can purify and strengthen the culture that constitutes each migrant. The victories of Christ’s grace – the little ones of everyday that anticipate the final one – in the migrant’s daily Way of the Cross go into forming the dense and complex “fabric” of the People of God. This is part of the “groaning” of the Pilgrim People.

[...]

b. The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature
Though there is much more to be said about Catholic teaching on migration, these points reflect a certain optimism, which springs from scrutinizing migration in the light of faith. To further understand this perception of migration, I would like to refer to a text of Vatican II: “The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father.”[17]

[...]

Change in interpersonal relationships is an aspect of conversion on the part of all involved in dialogue, something not easy. It requires patience and perseverence, reciprocal acceptance of differences and respect for what people freely decide according to their conscience. The attitude of not covering over differences but recognizing them and living with them in the hope of eventually finding ways through them is likewise part of the process of intercultural living.

[...]

4. Conclusion
This paper has been an attempt to take part in the Church’s task of scrutinizing and interpreting a sign of the times, migration. It should be clear that migration is more than a humanitarian and legal problem; it is a dimension of the Pilgrim Church itself. Historically migration contributes to salvation conceived as the great movement of all peoples, cultures, and languages being drawn into unity with Christ by the working of the Holy Spirit until their pilgrimage reaches its goal and place of rest.

[...]

Migration will not go away. In the end, it needs to be gratefully accepted as a gift of God that can bring out the best in believing communities and form them in the multi-faceted cultural richness of all who seek to follow Christ.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/po...lesiology.html
 
Old June 17th, 2004 #2
The Final Solution
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vlad
Is the church racist in assuming that brown and black races cannot possibly become constructive societies without integrating into a white one?
I don't think it's an assumption. All the big Churches, especially the Mother one, send hapless missionaries to Afreaka, etc., who observe firsthand the level of civilization niggers are capable on their own. And no doubt, if not for the hierarchy needing to increase the flock, they'd reach the same conclusion as anyone else with half a brain who's been there:

Quote:
I have given my life to try to alleviate the sufferings of Africa. There is something that all white men who have lived here like I must learn and know: that these individuals are a sub-race. They have neither the intellectual, mental, or emotional abilities to equate or to share equally with white men in any function of our civilization. I have given my life to try to bring them the advantages which our civilization must offer, but I have become well aware that we must retain this status: the superior and they the inferior. For whenever a white man seeks to live among them as their equals they will either destroy him or devour him. And they will destroy all of his work. Let white men from anywhere in the world, who would come to Africa, remember that you must continually retain this status; you the master and they the inferior like children that you would help or teach. Never fraternise with them as equals. Never accept them as your social equals or they will devour you. They will destroy you.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize for peace,
in his 1961 book, From My African Notebook.

http://forum.onecenter.com/cgi-bin/f...africa&mid=101
 
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